Much like the dying coal industry, the glass industry has seen an equal upheaval brought about by either mismanagement, poor finances or overseas competition.

 

In comparing the glass factories to the coal mines, the similarities can be studied to the relationship each industry had upon its community. In the case of Glen Rogers, West Virginia, the Wyoming County town was built around a coal mine which housed workers and their families. Businesses, such as general stores and gasoline stations were staples of the coal mining communities, and the larger camps included  hotels, hospitals and theaters. When the mines prospered, such as during the 1920s through the 1930s, and post-World War II until the 1960s, the communities did well. Living standards were high, roads and rail lines were maintained, schools produced well-educated children, and there was much wealth to go around in the region. When the mines closed or were idled, the communities were either abandoned or became significantly less viable. In the case of Glen Rogers, the general stores and essentially every amenity that would sustain a rural village closed. And while the effects were not immediate, the population continued to bleed and little to no investment was made in the coal camp town.

 

In the case of Jeannette, Pennsylvania, the community’s primary industry was based around the manufacture of glass. First incorporated as a borough in 1889, the town earned the “Glass City” nickname fairly early on due to the number of glass manufacturing operations in the area. Even the town name, Jeannette, came from the first name of Jeannette Hartupee McKee, wife of H. Sellers McKee, a local industry owner who cofounded the Chambers and McKee Glass Works. Jeannette was also the first manufacturing town in Westmoreland County.

 

In 1938, Jeannette became a third class city. At its height, the town boasted seven large glass factories, such as Jeannette Glass, Westmoreland Glass, and Fort Pitt Glass. It also produced at one point 70% to 85% of the world’s glass. Contrast that with today’s economic climate. For 2011, Jeannette is home to only two glass companies. The city’s population has continued to shrink, mirroring the declines of the local glass industry, resting today population at 10,500.

 

On an overcast weekday, I photographed Jeannette Glass which was one of the largest glass manufacturers in the city. The plant grew in size as technological developments improved, such as after the introduction of the O’Neill semi-automatic bottle blowing machine in 1898 that allowed for the mass production of wide mouth jars and pressed glass items. By 1904, Jeannette had expanded to a wide range of products, producing bottles for drinks, drugs and food products, expanding into prism glass by 1917.

 

A plant expansion was completed in 1920 and ten years later, Jeannette reached peak capacity with five continuous tanks operating. In 1935, Jeannette had become so large that it was recognised as a publicly owned corporation and its stock was listed on the American Stock Exchange. Production waned during World War II, but increased after the war had concluded due to an increase in consumer spending. In 1961, Jeannette purchased another glass company in Jeannette and expanded with a technical glassware department. It further expanded two years later with the world’s largest electric glass furnace that melted heat-resisting glass.

 

It’s fortunes declined by the late 1970s, and in 1981 Connecticut businessman John P. Brogan leveraged a buyout of Jeannette. His lack of knowledge with the glass industry led to a sharp and un-reversible decline in the company, forcing the company to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy just one year later. Jeannette closed in 1983.

 

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Photographing Jeannette was akin to a step back into time. Nestled amongst a housing redevelopment project, a refurbished industrial park that was part of another glass company, and a busy set of railroad tracks, a collection of rusting, deteriorating buildings stand out as a black eye to the town. Portions of the complex had collapsed and machinery, once hailed as the world’s largest, lay rusting away that at this point was all but unsalvageable. While some kilns were collapsing, the molds that produced heart-shaped glasses lay neatly stacked on wooden shelving gathering dust. The general state of affairs was all but short of total disarray.

 

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Related page:

a. Jeannette Glass Company: http://www.abandonedonline.net/industry/jeannette-glass/

 

Related post:

b. The Death of Glass: http://www.abandonedonline.net/2011/11/01/the-death-of-glass/

Fascinating.

Very interesting. The pics remind me of an auto factory I went into at the Motor City Industrail Park. Given the relatively unsecure state of the building, I was surprised to find documents that dated back to 1983, such attendace rosters, maintenance schedules and parts manuals. It was very captivating, yet eerie at the same time.

 

The Jeannette Glass Company looks like it would provide an enthralling experience to the urban explorer or history buff. At the same time, I bet that place is inundated with mold, asbestos and other toxins.

 

Btw, I knew Jeannette, PA sounded familiar. That's where Terrelle Pryor is from.

^Packard Motors, Detroit! That factory closed way back in the 1960s with the demise of the brand, but was used for other minor industrial uses after that. It pretty much catches on fire every other week and parts of the reinforced concrete building are now in stages of collapse.

Around 1900 there was a tremendous boom in natural gas production in the area around Winchester, Dunkirk, and Montpelier, Indiana and spreading through about a fifty-mile radius. The gas supplies, then thought to be inexhastible, gave rise to a lot of land speculation and industries. Glass-making was foremost among them, but there were iron foundries and rolling mills, too, and many operations of various sizes producing bricks and drainage tile from locally-mined clay. The gas fields produced a tremendous flow over a fairly short period, and although I remember a few producing gas and oil wells into the sixties and seventies in the vicinity of Petroleum and Pennville and over through Salamonia, little evidence remains of the riches and wild-west boomtown atmosphere that prevailed for a few years in some those towns.